70 budding engineers compete at Delaware Valley

Some 70 regional junior high and high school students competed Friday in the first Delaware Valley Warrior Engineering Invitational.

BETH BRELJE

Some 70 regional junior high and high school students competed Friday in the first Delaware Valley Warrior Engineering Invitational.

The competition, designed to put engineering minds in action, was organized through the cooperation of the Delaware Valley School District, the Pocono Mountain Environmental Education Center and the nonprofit Air Soil Water, which advocates for renewable energy and other forms of sustainability.

"It's about sustainability," Air Soil Water founder Jolie DeFeis said. "If we want to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, we must teach the next generation about finding new energy sources through engineering. Everything you touch has been engineered."

The event was hosted at Delaware Valley High School and included participants from Wallenpaupack and Abington Heights school districts.

High school teams were tasked with building an air conditioner producing the coldest air.

Junior high students were asked to protect an ice cube from melting quickly by creating the best insulation. The team with the heaviest ice cube after two hours won.

"This shows students a real life engineering problem," said Robert Curtis, Delaware Valley engineering and physics teacher. "You are always limited in time and materials, you must work in a group and be able to communicate your idea."

DeFeis hopes to make the engineering invitational an annual event.

The winners for middle school were: First, Wallenpaupack Area Middle School; Second, Team 1 of Dingman Delaware Middle school; third place, Team 2 of Dingman Delaware Middle School.

The high school winners were: First, Delaware Valley High School; Second, Abington Heights High School; third, and Wyoming Valley West High School.

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